Crop Circles
by willow-writer
Summary: Ron catches Fred and George getting up to mischief, but he can't work out what they're doing. That is until the muggles notice. Short, fun one-shot.


A/N: Just a short little silly one-shot. I wrote the start of this a while ago for something completely different and completely forgot about it until I stumbled across it tonight. Hope you enjoy it! :)

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, except the one with silliest name. XD Everything you recognise belongs to Ms Rowling.

* * *

"Fred! George! Wait up!" an eleven year old Ron called. His brothers were meant to be taking him to the village to buy some muggle sweets but as soon as they were out of sight of The Burrow, they had run off. "Fred! George!" Ron called again, getting frustrated.

They were always doing this, always playing tricks on him, running off and leaving him behind. He couldn't wait until September when he would be off to Hogwarts. Then he could make some of his own friends and have his own adventures. As Ron came to the top of the hill, he saw Fred and George in a paddock a few hundred meters away. He couldn't see what they were doing, but they were huddled close together which was never a good sign. He ran down the hill and approached them quietly, hoping they wouldn't tell him to 'bugger off and go annoy someone else', like they usually did. As he got closer, he realised they both had their wands out and were muttering a spell under their breath. Ron might not have been to Hogwarts yet, but he knew you weren't allowed to do magic outside school until you turned seventeen, and Fred and George were definitely not seventeen yet.

"Hey!" he called out to them. "What are you doing? You're not allowed to do magic! Mum is going to kill us!"

"Not if you don't tell her, she won't," said Fred.

"And you better not tell her," said George.

"Or we'll be the ones to kill you."

"So keep your trap shut!"

"Anyway, our work here is done," they said together, turning and walking back up the hill towards home.

Ron turned to follow them but before he got very far his curiosity got the better of him. He turned around and let his eyes scan the area below. The only thing slightly odd about the paddock were the numerous circles where nothing seemed to be growing, but he couldn't believe Fred and George were responsible for that - it wasn't even a good prank. They preferred loud, messy pranks that caused a lot of trouble.

Ron glanced over his shoulder. The twins were long gone, probably hoping to get him into trouble by telling their mother that he'd had run off without them. He shook his head. He _really_ couldn't wait until September. Deciding that he was going to end up in trouble no matter how long he took to get home, Ron ran down the hill and over to the spot where Fred and George had been standing.

There was absolutely nothing extraordinary about the piece of land his brothers had been huddled over. There wasn't even anything interesting about it. Whoever owned this land was using it to grow wheat and from what Ron could see – though he knew nothing about growing wheat – it was doing quite well, except for the round patches where the earth was bare. Perhaps the farmer was hoping to plant something else there come spring, Ron wondered, even though he thought it a bit odd. Ron quickly decided there really was nothing amiss, and therefore nothing that he would have to try and – probably unsuccessfully – hide from his mother, Ron turned his back on the field and ran back up the hill. If he was lucky the twins had stopped in the town to buy some sweets and he could catch up with them before they had a chance to tell tales to their mother.

…

_**Two Days Later**_

"Fred, stop throwing bacon at your brother," Molly Weasley reprimanded.

Fred threw one last well-aimed piece of bacon at Ron and poked his tongue out at his mother's back, making Ginny giggle as Ron picked the bacon out of his hair.

Ron sat at the kitchen table with his brothers and Ginny while Molly bustled around the kitchen getting breakfast ready. She placed the eggs on the table just as Arthur strolled in from the lounge.

"Perfect timing," Molly said. "Who was that in the floo?"

"Thomas Gribblestick, from the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee. They've got a problem they wanted my advice on," Arthur answered, sitting down and helping himself to sausages.

"Again? They may as well just hire you, the number of times they come to you for help," said Molly, finally sitting down to join her family.

Arthur laughed. "Maybe. This isn't really a very interesting case though." He took a bite of his black pudding before continuing. "The muggles in one of the fields past Ottery have gone to the muggle papers claiming aliens have visited the area. They found a number of bare circles on their land in the middle of their wheat crop."

Ron's jaw dropped. Fred and George grinned at each other.

"Why does that mean aliens?" Ginny asked.

"Muggles blame all sorts of magical occurrences on aliens. Admittedly they are often encouraged by the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee. They call these bare, round patches of earth crop circles. Some muggles believe it's evidence of UFO landings or alien abductions. In this case though, Thomas has assured me they were caused by magic."

"How can they tell it was caused by magic, dad?" George asked.

"All magic leaves traces," Arthur said. "Especially when performed by amateurs that don't know how to properly cover their tracks." He gave George a meaningful look which was, thankfully missed by Molly.


End file.
